Chaos Sector, Black Market Auction House headquarters.
Beneath the hundred-meter crystal dome, no sunlight penetrated—only the decadent glow of fermented wealth that made shadows dance like guilty secrets.
The air mixed expensive ambergris with something resembling rust's metallic blood scent—luxury perfumed with violence.
Two high-energy arc spears crossed like executioner's blades, blocking the entrance with crackling authority.
"This place doesn't accept scrap." The security guard's voice, filtered through his helmet, carried thunder-like metallic resonance that could shake bones.
He didn't even properly look at the three people before him—dismissal made manifest in body language.
Oil-stained Ethan in his wrinkled suit, Marcus carrying a blood-dripping canvas bag, and Lyra with torn skirt hems that spoke of recent violence.
This outfit would be considered dirty even at the neighboring slaughterhouse's employee entrance.
Marcus's canvas bag shifted ominously, Steel Bone's severed head inside knocking against the ground with dull metallic impacts—a trophy that leaked hydraulic fluid like digital tears.
"Who are you looking down on?" Marcus was about to explode, his face flushing crimson with wounded pride.
Ethan raised his hand with the patience of a teacher calming an unruly student.
No wasted words. He directly pulled out a stack of crumpled bills from his jacket—currency extracted from corpse piles, still carrying body heat and gunpowder residue like evidence of recent negotiations.
The guard sneered, fingers moving to his waist's shock switch with predatory confidence. "That money wouldn't even cover the air purification tax here, beggar."
Ethan remained calm as deep space, approaching the [Asset Verification Machine] connected to the interstellar banking database—a chrome altar to digital worship.
He raised his hand with surgical precision. Pressed down.
No unnecessary movements, no dramatic flourishes.
**[System hijacking in progress...]**
**[Base logic overwrite... complete.]**
The originally red-blinking machine suddenly emitted a piercing shriek—the wail of core code being forcibly altered, reality rewritten at the quantum level.
Next second, noble purple light representing supreme authority exploded, illuminating the entire foyer like a digital sunrise.
**[Beep! Black Gold Supreme VIP, authentication passed.]**
**[Credit Rating: Incalculable (∞)]**
The guard's sneer died beneath his faceplate like a candle in a hurricane.
This wasn't wealth—this was controlling the auction house's life-and-death data streams, puppet strings made of pure information.
The arc spears instantly retracted, both guards folding themselves into ninety-degree angles, heads nearly touching the floor tiles in submission that bordered on worship.
Ethan withdrew his hand, not even bothering to wipe the dust from his fingertips, walking straight across the red carpet with the confidence of someone who owned the building's mortgage.
Behind him, Marcus muttered quietly, "Ethan, why didn't that machine alarm? We owe five billion."
Ethan kept his eyes forward, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses with meticulous care.
"In accounting, that's called negative asset overflow." His voice carried the authority of someone who'd found loopholes in universal law. "Overflow enough, and the system treats it as... extremely robust liquidity."
---
Auction hall.
No ushers guided them; the three randomly took seats in the corner's general seating area—peasants among princes, wolves among sheep.
Dim lighting here still allowed clear views of the stage's dirty dealings unfolding like a theater of the damned.
Slaves with dead eyes, contraband drugs that glowed with malevolent energy, planetary mining rights to worlds that screamed... everything tagged with prices like assembly-line meat.
"Ladies and gentlemen." The stage auctioneer, wearing white gloves that had never touched honest work, lifted the final black cloth with theatrical flair.
*HUM—*
Inside the vacuum case, a crimson light pulsed like a captured heartbeat.
Though only thumb-sized, that nearly retina-burning heat made everyone present feel parched throats—proximity to concentrated stellar fury.
"S-Class Stellar Seed." The auctioneer's voice cracked with excitement that bordered on religious fervor.
"A living red giant's core! It's energy, weapon, and key to the divine realm!"
Ethan's pupils contracted slightly behind his lenses.
**[Scan Complete]**
**[Item: Dimensional Star Chart Fragment (Disguised State)]**
**[Necessity: Extremely High]**
That was it. The core material to legitimize his station from "illegal construction" to "official tax bureau"—bureaucratic alchemy at its finest.
"Starting bid: five million!" The auctioneer's hammer gleamed like a judge's gavel.
Ethan raised his right hand with casual authority.
"Six million."
Momentary silence filled the hall like the pause before thunder.
Everyone turned, looking at the shabbily dressed man in the corner with expressions ranging from confusion to outright disgust.
Second-floor VIP booth's one-way glass suddenly became transparent—privacy dissolving like sugar in acid.
A young man in nano-silk suit leaned against the railing, swirling half a glass of crimson liquid that might have been wine or something more expensive.
Golden viper tattoo at his temple writhed lifelike under the lights—wealth made flesh, arrogance given form.
Golden Viper Consortium's young master, Jin Tai.
He wasn't watching the stage, but staring at Ethan like spotting a cockroach on his dinner table—disgust mixed with the urge to crush.
*Flick.*
A burning cigar ash fell with deliberate precision, hitting Marcus's forehead like a declaration of war.
"Fifty million." Jin Tai's voice drawled with the lazy confidence of someone who'd never been told 'no.'
"Incidentally, clear out those eyesore trash."
The hall erupted in sycophantic laughter—the sound of money worshipping money.
Black market rules: currency was power, liquidity was law, and poverty was the only true crime.
Marcus brushed ash from his head, face flushing liver-colored, his canvas bag creaking ominously in his white-knuckled grip.
Lyra's thumb pushed open her sword guard, killing intent roaring within the sheath like caged lightning.
"Don't move." Ethan pressed Marcus's shoulder with gentle authority.
He pulled out his black notebook, uncapping his steel pen with movements elegant and deliberate—like preparing precise surgery on reality itself.
"Fifty million?" Ethan stood, looking up at the second floor with eyes that had calculated the worth of souls.
Behind his lenses, his gaze held no warmth—only two streams of frantically scrolling data, numbers that could rewrite existence.
"Young Master Jin." His voice carried the weight of cosmic judgment.
"Per First Tax Office Large-Sum Fund Supervision Act." Pen tip touched paper with scratching sounds that seemed to echo in dimensions beyond hearing.
"This money of yours... it's dirty too, isn't it?"
Laughter stopped abruptly, dying like a radio suddenly unplugged.
Jin Tai acted like he'd heard the universe's greatest joke, laughing until wine spilled over his lips like blood. "Dirty? Here you talk dirty to me? My money is just—"
Ethan's pen struck the paper heavily.
*SNAP.*
The sound wasn't loud, but like some fundamental rule's valve being forcibly closed—reality hiccupping.
**[Instant Audit Activated]**
**[Target: Golden Viper Consortium Liquid Asset Pool]**
**[Classification: Slave Trading (30%), Arms (40%), Blood Diamonds (30%)]**
**[Conclusion: Total Black Market Assets!]**
Ethan closed his notebook with the finality of a coffin lid sealing.
"Per tax law, black assets lack purchasing power." He snapped his fingers—a sound like breaking chains.
"Assets... circuit breaker."
Second-floor booth.
Jin Tai's finger froze mid-air above the payment key, suspended like a fly in amber.
*BEEP—!!!*
Piercing red alarms shattered the hall's elegant facade like glass under a sledgehammer.
On the big screen, Jin Tai's previously dizzying balance digits instantly turned gray "ERROR"—wealth transformed to worthlessness in digital seconds.
"What's happening?!" Jin Tai frantically pounded his terminal with the desperation of a drowning man. "System failure? Process my transfer! I have money!!"
"Funds frozen." "Account locked." "Credit bankruptcy."
Cold electronic voices repeated endlessly—a digital death knell for financial empire.
But this wasn't the end. Ethan watched the panicking Jin Tai upstairs, speaking again with the authority of cosmic law.
"Since you're bankrupt, executing mandatory debt collection procedures."
*Click-click-click—*
Teeth-grinding mechanical locking sounds arose like the universe's own handcuffs snapping shut.
Jin Tai's priceless nano-protective suit suddenly tightened, becoming a steel cage that squeezed like a python made of policy.
His storage rings severed mental connections with surgical precision. Even the energy pistol at his waist ejected its clip due to "overdue payments"—technology abandoning its master.
This was the data world's terror made manifest. Without money, equipment dependent on expensive energy instantly became scrap metal—digital death by financial starvation.
"My clothes! My gun!!" Jin Tai collapsed like a shelled crab, terrified and limp, everything he'd prided himself on revealed as paper-fragile before the rules.
Total silence descended like a funeral shroud.
The big shots stared at corner-seated Ethan in horror—watching a man who could unmake fortunes with fountain pen strokes.
He hadn't moved a finger, hadn't raised his voice. Just one sentence turned the black market prince into waste.
"Per Auction Law." Ethan looked at the stage's petrified auctioneer with eyes that had audited empires.
"Bidder default, item withdrawn."
He pulled a crumpled five-hundred-yuan note from Marcus's pocket—currency so humble it seemed to apologize for existing.
Gently placed it on the table. Pushed it forward with the confidence of someone betting the universe.
"Five hundred." His voice carried the weight of absolute certainty. "That's my bid."
The auctioneer trembled, hammer unable to fall—paralyzed by the impossibility of the moment.
A fifty-million divine artifact for five hundred? This wasn't just robbery—this was humiliating the entire black market's rules, spitting on the altar of capitalism itself.
"No other bids?" Ethan surveyed the surroundings with predatory calm.
Wherever his gaze passed, everyone averted their eyes like prey avoiding a apex predator's attention. No one wanted to become the next "audit" target.
"Sold." Ethan announced those words himself—judge, jury, and executioner of financial law.
The attendant, like a programmed robot, stiffly carried the case, respectfully presenting it to Ethan with trembling hands.
Ethan accepted the seed, casually pocketing it like loose change.
"Let's go." He turned and left without another upward glance, dismissing fifty million in stolen wealth like pocket lint.
That five-hundred note lay alone on the table like silent mockery—the smallest denomination conquering the greatest fortune.
Only after exiting the doors did night wind blow across Ethan's face.
His tense back muscles slightly relaxed—the performance was over, the audience dismissed.
That "asset circuit breaker" had drained nearly all his mental energy, but the prize was worth the price.
"Ethan..." Marcus was still dazed, reality struggling to process what he'd witnessed. "Five hundred for a sun... aren't we being a bit too lawless?"
"No." Ethan pressed the burning seed in his pocket, lips showing no smile—only the satisfaction of a job completed with mathematical precision.
"This is called reasonable tax avoidance."
Just then, his enhanced senses screamed warnings.
**[WARNING! Homologous rule fluctuations detected!]**
**[WARNING! Higher-dimensional observer locked on!]**
Ethan's head snapped up like a wolf scenting danger.
At the street's end, in shadows neon couldn't reach, a woman in silver-gray uniform stood quietly—authority made flesh, judgment given form.
Her chest bore a badge—an eye made entirely of starlight, wide open and unblinking.
The real Universal Tax Bureau. The genuine article.
The woman held a tablet-like terminal, her gaze piercing through the surging crowd with laser precision, nailing Ethan like a specimen to a board.
No killing intent radiated from her—only the cold disgust of examining irregular ledgers, finding discrepancies in reality's accounting.
She moved her lips with deliberate precision.
Ethan read that mouth shape with growing dread.
"Caught you, fake."
Ethan's pocket-pressing fingers suddenly tightened around the stolen seed—evidence of his crimes burning against his palm.
But he didn't flee, didn't panic, didn't break.
Instead, he adjusted his glasses with meticulous care, eyes behind the lenses igniting with flames more insane than stellar seeds—the look of a gambler spotting ten-thousand-fold odds.
"The real auditor's here..." Ethan whispered, voice lost in the wind but carrying the weight of cosmic challenge.
"Let's see whose fake books look prettier."